Vino verdict

Monday

Mar 31, 2014 at 12:01 AM

LODI - Kid in a candy store.

Bob Highfill

LODI - Kid in a candy store.

That's how I felt at the recent sixth annual Consumer Wine Awards at the Lodi Grape Festival Grounds. After filling out an online application, I was selected to be among 134 volunteer judges who rated 525 wines from 154 labels. It was like finding the golden ticket. In my fantasy movie, Willie Wonka makes pinot noir, not chocolate.

Judging at the Consumer Wine Awards was another experience in what has been an enjoyable journey in the world of wine, a hobby of mine for more than a decade.

About 12 years ago, some friends took me wine tasting in Lodi and the Sierra foothills, and I was hooked almost instantly. Wineries generally are in beautiful settings, and no one there ever seems to be in a bad mood. And if they are, after tasting a couple of samples, their frown invariably turns upside down. It's just a fun way to spend the day, and we are fortunate to live in one of the world's largest grape-growing and wine-producing areas.

Soon after my initiation, I was able to discern the main characteristics of grape varietals, how to pair wine with food, and that terroir - which means the geography, geology and the climate of a certain place - has a profound impact on what's in the glass.

My wife and I ventured to other prime wine locales, including the Napa and Sonoma valleys, the Central Coast, the Santa Barbara area, Temecula and the Baja Peninsula, to name several. At each stop, we tried to learn from the servers behind the tasting-room bar, and the workers and winemakers, whenever fortunate enough to cross their paths.

The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn. I read books and study guides, and earned Level I certification with the Wine and Spirit Education Trust through the Napa Valley Wine Academy, a one-day course and 30-question test at St. Supery Winery in Napa. I've taken part in Paul Marsh's Sommelier Bootcamp Series at Mile Wine Co. in Stockton and spoken with several grape growers, winery owners and winemakers. And I've only scratched the surface.

The organizers of the Consumer Wine Awards at Lodi asked prospective judges to identify their favorite wines (mine are pinot noir, cabernet sauvignon and merlot - take that "Sideways.") So, you can imagine how excited I was to sit down at the contest and see that I had pinot noir - 30 of them - to evaluate in a blind tasting. There were six panelists assigned to each category in the competition, which had wines from Portugal, Australia, Canada, California, New York, Oregon, Iowa, Washington, Texas and dozens more states. We were seated two to a table, each tasting different varietals. The judge next to me had traveled from Sacramento and evaluated white wines.

Judges were given a sheet with numbers corresponding to the glasses placed in front of them. We knew what varietal we were tasting, but no other information was provided. We tasted the wines in the order they were listed on the sheet. The directive from the organizers was to taste like an "average Joe" and not evaluate like wine critic Robert Parker. We had four minutes to taste and evaluate each sample, and we had to spit the remnants into a bucket. Swallowing was a no-no. The reason behind spitting was twofold: the organizers didn't want to send 134 tipsy people into the streets of Lodi, and the more one drinks, the duller their senses become, a fact that would have compromised the competition.

So I spat.

Taped to the table in front of each judge was a laminated scoring grid with a scale from zero ("dislike") to seven ("It can't get better than this"). The 30 pinot noirs were grouped by price: eight in the $6 to $12 range, 18 in the $12 to $25 range and four in the $25 to $50 range.

Some possessed the qualities that I find appealing in pinot noir: flavors and aromas of red cherries and strawberries, approachable, with soft tannins. Others lacked finesse and were too acidic.

The judging lasted about two hours. Later, at the after party, the entrants' numbers were affixed to the wine bottles so we could see what we had tasted. Among my favorites was the 2012 Moniz Family Sonoma Coast pinot noir ($20), which won a gold medal and Best of Class; the Hansen/Grunner 2009 Sonoma County pinot noir ($25), which took home gold; and silver medal winners, the 2010 Ripken Lodi pinot noir ($20) and the 2012 Black Stallion Los Carneros pinot noir ($28).

I hope to be selected to judge at next year's Lodi Consumer Wine Awards and continue an epic journey in the world of wine.

Contact staff writer Bob Highfill at (209) 546-8282 or bhighfill@recordnet.com. Follow him at recordnet.com/sportsblog, recordnet.com/fromthevine and on Twitter @bobhighfill.